The Last Song
by tseday871221
Summary: Peyton only smiles. She'd laugh if she didn't think it was such a tragedy-their fate.


Hey guys! Finished up a small story I had stored on my computer for a few years now. AU story. This story take places after the events in season 3.

Unbeta'd all mistakes are mine.

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"Dance with me", he asks her, when he spies her alone.

She is only a little hesitant before he feels her hand slide comfortably into his, a perfect fit. He leads her onto the dance floor, there she moves into the circle of his arms.

He leads her, invites her to move along with him and they fall into a nice rhythm.

"You look beautiful", he hears himself say after a moment, his eyes taking her in. It's no surprise when Peyton slightly blushes, eyes averted.

Only the word beautiful is merely an understatement, not an accurate description for how he saw her.

It had been Peyton and not Brooke, who had walked down the aisle and had managed to take his breath away and he was certain it had little to do with her chosen dress, loose and yet form fitting to cement the day's occasion.

She has been feeling awkward and uneasy all day. That tightening in her chest she felt the moment she set foot back in Tree Hill, feels tighter, heavier now that she's no longer avoiding him and they're face to face again and she's allowed him to invade her personal space.

The feelings he is making her feel, she doesn't want to feel them. She had moved hundreds of miles away to stop feeling and it worked, for a while.

In the midst of their mutual friends, Peyton spies Brooke, her eldest and closest friend laughing and smiling, all attention on her, rightfully so.

"You make her really happy Luke."

It's guilt, shame and a little pride that keeps Lucas from replying. _You make me happy. _He only nods. Brooke has divulged such sentiments to him a thousand times and he likes making the brunette happy.

He wants to continue to believe that she makes him happy too. It's a little too late for anything else.

At the change of pace in the song, he spins Peyton around slightly, feels the engagement ring against his palm. "What about you, are you happy?"

"Yes", Peyton hears herself answer, though even to her own ears she hardly sounds convincing, but there is no point in telling the truth. Not now.

And then he's soon peering at her through narrowed eyes, tilting his head in that familiar way he does when he's trying to read her.

"Peyt"-

"Don't", she warns, cutting him off. "Just dance."

She won't let him get the chance to pick her apart. He's always had a way of doing just that. Even without the preamble of words, she'd be left spilling things to him, unguarded, trusting and with little fear of judgment.

They simply dance for a few minutes, swaying in tune to the music. She's thankful for the silence-his compliance. This earns him a small smile.

Lucas meets her smile with one of his own, but as comfortable as he was used to their silences being, he can't keep quiet. They hadn't kept in touch like they'd promised and he didn't know when he would see her again.

"Favorite wedding?"

The question is neither absurd nor surprising to Peyton, in fact she is more than willing to oblige. She plays along, because it's absolutely and completely them. It was a game specifically designed with the intent in helping them get further acquainted with one another in their earlier years, despite the fact that at the time they knew and understood more about each other than anyone else. They used to play it often; on rainy days, sometimes during the breaks of their combined practices in the gym, whenever they had a chance to hang out. Just the two of them.

He didn't think there would ever be a time where he would not want to know more about Peyton.

"Not fair. Ask me again at _my_ wedding, and no offense, but yours has been quite… boring." The blondes share a laugh at Brooke's expense knowing that even moments of spontaneity were carefully planned and arranged accordingly to where she saw fit. It was her big day, her dream wedding. It wouldn't be like her to let any unexpected occurrences put the even the tiniest blip in such prepared perfection.

"Best moment in time?" Peyton asks him.

"Now", Lucas answers. Peyton nods her head even though he doesn't clarify if he means their moment, this particular moment they are sharing or the moment he and Brooke were declared husband and wife. She's afraid to ask.

"Same question?"

"Before," Peyton answers. The words slips off her tongue boldly defying her efforts to conceal and contain what she's really feeling.

They both fall silent. He doesn't ask for her to clarify, for he knows exactly what those words mean, what she's referring to. He knows because the choice of word paints an accurate depiction of a moment in time where he was the most content; with her. It was before everything got complicated, before their engagements, before Peyton had decided to skip town, back when there was still time to fix what had been broken between them a long time ago. If only they hadn't been so stubborn then maybe they would be together and the circumstances in which they meet now could have been avoided.

There's that look again, and this time Peyton feels translucent as ever. She decides to remain silent, letting the word hang between them. She feels him searching for an interpretation, recognizes quickly when he draws the only conclusion.

The music swells. It's a beautiful and heartbreaking crescendo of melody and Peyton swears it must be timed in tune to her emotions. Tears are forming, hot and heavy against her lashes and soon she's freeing herself from his hold, not caring that the song has not yet ended.

She walks fast across the marble flooring, trying to put a considerable amount of distance between herself and Lucas. Though she is free of him now, she wonders if she would ever be able to rid herself from the emotional hold he has on her. She wonders if she'll ever love her fiancé half as much as she's loved and loves Lucas. Had she even tried?

That moment on the dance floor both taunt and mock her. Had she forgotten where she was? At a wedding. Brooke's wedding. To Lucas. In her hasty retreat she spots Brooke a few yards ahead, no longer surrounded by a group of their mutual friends. She's alone, full champagne glass in hand, and she's staring rather intently right at her. Here, Peyton wonders if she'd ever stop hurting Brooke.

Peyton forges a smile when the brunette calls out to her, but she doesn't stop moving.

Although there were times Peyton had known her best friend to be a tad vapid she wasn't an idiot and she wasn't blind. It was Brooke who had accosted her on several occasions about her feelings for Lucas, prompting Peyton to actually to look inside her heart and realize that her feelings for Lucas were still there. She had left town then, not wanting to ruin her friendship again with Brooke, not wanting to ruin the cherished friendship she forged with Lucas if he hadn't felt the same. There was just too much to lose.

Bad timing, it's another word that Lucas believes sums up part of he and Peyton's history. On the dance floor, the girl who left him broken and bitter, their friendship vanishing into thin air three years prior, had left him alone to deal with his emotions, to handle unaided the way his heart reacts so powerfully to her confession.

And yet, there's no time to think about what's going through his head, or more importantly his heart. He had just gotten married. _Married. _And he notes painfully that the word never seemed so detached from the sentiment, the way they did now.

In the sea of friends and family, his search for Brooke turns up empty, but he catches sight of Nathan and the look on the younger Scott's face is not to be ignored. The brunette sports a firm frown.

_She's not completely gone Lucas, Peyton's only a phone call away. There's still time to change things. Fix them. One of you has got to stop being a coward. _

Nathan stares hard at Lucas, shakes his head knowingly, disapprovingly, mouths the words. "It's too late."

And he's right. He's made his bed and now he has to lie in it.

She's unaware of her exact destination until she arrives. The restroom is vacant, and it's just what she needs to make sense of or due away with the noise in her head. Slightly damaged, stained and dirty, the mirror, adjacent to where she stands is the perfect description for everything she feels. She quickly disposes of her tears, swiping at them with the back of her hand.

She thought she could handle being at the wedding, be a part of the wedding, simply uphold her duties as the maid of honor and go home. Back where things were safe, back to Savannah and back to Jake. There, every corner turned didn't assault her with images and memories of Lucas; instead she was reminded of the life she had built with Jake and his daughter Jenny.

Only that wasn't completely true. It's only what she wanted to believe.

The squeak of the bathroom door pulls her from her thoughts, and lets her know that she's no longer alone.

"Is everything okay in here?"

It takes Peyton less than a second to recognize the voice of her best friend.

She turns, graceful but brittle, to face her directly. "I'm okay Brooke. I just don't feel all that well." It's the truth, but also a lie.

"I guess that makes two of us then."

Peyton could feel it all unraveling and she braces herself for a barrage of questions, the accusation, an exposing of a truth she knew now she could no longer deny.

"I'm pregnant", the brunette whispers.

And it's not at all what Peyton expected, and yet it's a blow to her heart and now she's really feeling a little unwell. There were still times when she envisioned herself married and with children, where she imagined Lucas there too.

"But you… you were just drinking", the blonde points out quickly, surprising herself with her inability to summon up words of excitement, a congratulation.

Brooke shakes her head. "I didn't drink, I wouldn't even though I really wanted to." Those last five words are said louder than the first, and for Peyton there is no misinterpreting how Brooke has meant for them to be received.

"Had I known that you wanted to leave to Savannah, before you just up and disappeared on us, I'm not going to lie, I would've been the first to offer to buy you a one-way ticket."

"Then why invite me to your wedding Brooke?"

"Because you're still my best friend and I'm six weeks pregnant," Brooke casually responds as if it were information enough.

The brunette tugs at the middle of her white, heavily embellished gown, then laughs lightly to herself, but Peyton is quick to note the hitch in her voice, the unevenness of

it. "He's in love with you Peyton."

"He loves you Brooke", Peyton insists.

It shouldn't feel like she's back in high school, but it does and here she is again trying to assuage her friend's fears with words she knew Brooke wouldn't believe, with words she had often not wanted to believe herself.

"It's not the same thing. You know it and I know it."

They lock eyes, and then there is a shedding of tears, a muffled sob. Brooke allows herself to be swept into Peyton arms. They stay that way for a while. It's not lost on Peyton that it may be a long time before they share a hug like this again.

When they pull away Brooke examines her makeup in the mirror, but she hardly makes an effort to conceal the tears she's shed after all, for her today is an appropriate day for tears.

The late afternoon sun is slightly blinding as Peyton stares out into the distance, but no more blinding than the light that catches on the diamonds of her engagement ring. She toys with it, toys with the idea of leaving it behind. A sense of shame engulfs her. She wishes, she could just leave it _all_ behind. Start a new life for herself without the trail of pain and heartache she's sure she'd leave in her wake.

She perches herself on the banister of the church's porch, well worn, and wiped clean.

Though, she sits on the outside of the church, she is sure she can hear the high pitch of Haley's voice, an excited cheer of some sort.

She's cold now, there's a sudden absence of warmth on her back. A door closes behind her.

Out of the church emerges a lone Lucas. A sigh escapes Peyton lips, both hating and loving that he always knows just where to find her.

"Where's Brooke?"

"She's celebrating with mom. Did she tell you we're having a baby?"

There's a smile on Lucas' face when he asks, but there's something else too Peyton thinks, something in his voice that doesn't quite mirror the smile he wears but she can't quite identify it.

"You're going to make a great father Luke."

"And you're going to make Jake a proud husband". He has a right to be upset with her for disrupting his life this way, it would be fitting if he wanted to put her in her place, but she knows that he's not and she realizes its resignation she heard in his voice just seconds ago. It's resignation that she hears in his voice now. It's not the way he wants any of this to be.

In the silence, she hears her thoughts racing, feels her throat tighten as she looks at him watching her.

"You and me, we're a real pieces of work. Aren't we?"

Peyton only smiles. She'd laugh if she didn't think it was such a tragedy-their fate.

"I-I can't stay Peyton."

She got it. He couldn't stay with her and he wouldn't be asking her to leave Jake. He won't be leaving Brooke.

Seeing the tears well up in Peyton's eyes again should have been his cue to leave. Instead he quickly positions himself on the railing next to her, leans into her gently. He looks at her, seeing the girl he's been in love with for years, the girl who he knows will forever hold a place in his heart.

And he tells her that much, if only to get it out of his head and off his chest. He presses his lips to the back of her hand, places a kiss there, the only real intimacy he'll allow himself.

His shoulders slump momentarily before he inhales deeply and draws himself up straight. It's the sting of his unshed tears that cues him to make his exit, not the sound of his wife calling out for him. It's hard as hell to bring himself to say good bye and finally let go of the possibility of them being something more but he does.

For the both of them it's a matter of grit now and saving face.

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Thanks for reading 3. If you liked it let me know! Leave a review. Any questions, feel free to ask.

-Jess


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